Right now, Aurora Wood Pellets proprietor Brad Mapes says he’s focused on setting up the business’s logistics site, four kilometres north of Enterprise.
“With the pallet side of it, we did have a delay,” he says.
NNSL file photo
The two community working groups that will be harvesting wood for the pellet mill – Fort Providence and Fort Resolution – didn't have a working manager for the project until close to a week ago, which stalled negotiations, says Mapes.
He’s hoping the logistics site, which is close to the Yellowknife highway and four kilometres square in size, can bring some secondary business to the project as a holding place for materials to ship to the territory’s mines.
Mapes says he intends to utilize a rail spur that will eventually export wood pellets south to also bring materials up for the mines and store them for pick-up on site, which he says could provide a cheaper logistics option than relying purely on trucking.
Mapes has been working on making the pellet mill a reality for close to eight years now, and while he’s confident that it’s going to happen – and that it’s going to be a big boon for his region – he’s willing to play the long game and do it collaboratively with communities in the South Slave.
“It’s a huge project that has a lot of components to it. It is a concern to some of the [nearby Indigenous] groups when you're talking about harvest. I learned a lot of patience,” says Mapes.
“We need to make sure that we communicate and get this out to the groups to make sure that everybody has understanding, and I think that's just another step.”
The operation could directly employ 150 people, Mapes says. They will be bussed to site from nearby Enterprise, Hay River and Kakisa. He says he wants other communities in the region, like Fort Smith and Fort Resolution, to also get in on the opportunities for work.
Then there will be maintenance jobs, transportation jobs, and heightened economic activity in the communities themselves, he says.
The site presents more opportunities than just storage, according to Mapes. There’s been talk about utilizing heat recovery from its diesel generators to heat greenhouses, he says.
“If there's an opportunity to create some jobs for our region, I'm all open to try to figure out a way to make that happen on our site.”
He cited entrepreneurs like Russell King, of Kingland Ford, and the Stewart family, of Igloo Building Supplies, “who brought forward ideas of how to create opportunities for the Hay River community in the North that, at times, probably people never thought would happen. But they made it happen.”
He thinks Aurora Wood Pellets might leave another legacy like that, and even though it might take a while to get in place – including a year of construction, once he’s got the deals in place to make it happen – it’ll also has the potential to be around for a very long time.